Current military tactical networks and communications systems are greatly constrained by the bandwidth limitations of the RF spectrum. The ever-expanding information age has led to many simultaneous voice, video and data applications which require more and more bandwidth. This is particularly true in tactical military communications with numerous life-or-death requirements to stream voice, video and data information to military personnel in dangerous locations. Thus, there is an ever-increasing critical need for greater bandwidth.
Along with the critical need for increased bandwidth, current military, law enforcement and security tactics have placed more and more reliance on the use of sensors for situational awareness. Remote sensors in numerous applications now provide intelligence information about unwanted human intruders, ground vibrations, vehicular traffic, battlefield monitoring, battle planning, environmental conditions, seismic events, the weather, and so on. Remote sensor equipment generally needs to be positioned in such a way that the user is not detected by the opponent. When prior art sensors are placed in an array with a group of other sensors, such arrangements can typically create detectable electronic signatures and backscattering, which is radio propagation in which the direction of the incident and scattered waves, resolved along a reference direction, are oppositely directed. Sensors that emit unwanted electronic signatures and backscattering limit their effectiveness and endanger the lives of military, law enforcement and security personnel. Current techniques to limit or retard unwanted electronic signatures and backscattering largely involve a design and development process specific to each system. The overall goal is to reduce the radar cross section through techniques that include echo scattering and echo cancellation, but those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that there is currently no single solution for every system requiring concealment. Currently available techniques for eliminating electronic signature and backscattering counteract the user's ability to monitor the situation without being detected. Therefore, sensors that emit unwanted electronic signatures and backscattering suffer from a number of disadvantages, limitations and shortcomings that can seriously limit their capabilities and effectiveness.
Thus, there has been a long-felt need for a sensor to effectively detect, monitor and measure intelligence information without suffering from the prior art's disadvantages, limitations and shortcomings of a detectable electronic signature, backscattering and numerous design-specific solutions. Needless to say, a discretely positioned and shielded sensor could avoid or minimize detection and greatly enhance undetected intelligence gathering. Up until now, there is no available shielded sensor that effectively limits or prevents detection of an electronic signature and backscattering in a way that allows the user to successfully gather intelligence without detection. New meta-materials utilizing surface plasmonic coupling and similar surface phenomena can now make it possible to answer the long-felt needs for a shielded sensor and increased bandwidth, without suffering from the disadvantages, limitations and shortcomings of prior art sensors.